What she was asking for didn’t sound much like a break.

Kakashi’s tongue found the edge of his teeth, resting on the razor line. “I can’t drink with you,” he said, thinking ever so briefly of the half-empty bottle of shouuchu he’d thrown away from the back of his own fridge, and every reason why. “Are you sure you don’t want Ryouma? He’s better at... all of this, than I am.”

She gave him a thinly veneered stern look. “Now you’re just trying to get out of it.” Before Kakashi could argue that he hadn’t agreed to get into it, she sobered, bare bones showing through. “I'm not making Ryouma watch me drink myself into a stupor. I know you wouldn't do that to him."

There was another reason not to get to know people. Once they found your buttons, they could kick you in them.

“That’s not—” Kakashi began, before abandoning the line of thought entirely. She didn’t want words. She didn’t want Ryouma’s dark eyes and careful hands and earnest attempts to help, watching her while she cracked hollow. She just wanted a guard. “Wait here.”

He didn’t close the door on her face this time, though it was tempting.

Ryouma was still asleep, tangled in blankets and books he couldn’t read, breathing soft and even. He barely twitched when Kakashi ghosted fingers over his arm, thinking. Ryouma couldn’t read a note, and Kakashi didn’t think it was possible to effectively convey ‘I’ve stepped out to ensure your extremely strange former one-night-stand doesn’t blow a crater in Konoha, back soon’ in pictograms. Ryouma didn’t seem likely to wake before dawn—he was still easily exhausted, still building his reserves back up—but he’d gone to sleep trusting that he was safe, and that Kakashi would be around when he woke up.

A quietly summoned clone was the best attempt Kakashi could make at being in two places at once.

He left it frowning at the scattered collection of notes, and grabbed a handful of supplies from his desk, along with his jounin vest, before heading back to the door, resurrecting the protective seals as he went. He was halfway there when Katsuko said: “I didn’t bring glasses.”

“Drink from the bottle like an adult,” Kakashi told her.

Katsuko’s attempt at dark, mournful eyes failed to move him. “But then I can’t mix the beer and shouchu together,” she said.

“Good,” he said, stepping out and locking the door. The seals flared and set behind him, lively and lethal. “Then maybe you won’t be sick. Where do you want to go?”